Obeying God Rather than Men
Acts 4:18-5:42
Acts Series Part 13
By Dave Redick

There is a difference between a conviction and a preference. According to the U.S. Supreme Court, a preference is a very strong belief, held with great strength. You can give your entire life in a full-time way to the service of the preference, and can also give your entire material wealth in the name of the same. You can energetically proselytize others to your preference. You can also teach this belief to your children, and the Supreme Court may still rule that it is a preference and not a conviction. A preference is a strong belief, but a belief that you will change under the right circumstances - such as peer pressure, family pressure, lawsuits, jail, and threat of death. A conviction is a belief that you will not change.

Eric Liddell, the son of Scottish missionaries to China and a ministerial student, was a gifted athlete and the best sprinter in the British Empire. He first gained national recognition by winning the 100- and 200-meter races at the Amateur Athletic Association championships in 1923. In July of 1924, the young Scottish athlete was favored to win the 100-meter race in the Olympic Games in Paris. But a few weeks before the Olympics he learned that the finals for the 100-meter event were scheduled for a Sunday afternoon. Eric had a religious conviction that it was wrong for him to play sports on Sunday. For the last few weeks before the Games he quietly excused himself after evening dinner from the usual bull sessions with his classmates, then returned home exhausted hours afterward. Weeks later the whole world knew his secret. Eric had spent those evening hours practicing for a different event that was scheduled for a weekday and which required a different type of speed and endurance. On the closing day of the Olympics he stood on the winner’s platform and received the Gold Medal as 400-meter champion. Liddell, who later became a missionary to China, died as a prisoner of war in a Japanese concentration camp during World War II. His story was told in the 1981 award winning film, Chariots of Fire.(1)

Regardless of how you might feel about sports on Sunday, you have to admire a man with such courage of conviction. Olympic gold is no small honor and accepting extra pain and stress so as not to dishonor that conviction is something many would be unwilling to do.

This morning I’d like to ask you about your convictions. By "convictions" I mean your core beliefs - the standards or principles by which you run your life. Are there certain principles in your life that aren’t negotiable?

As Christians, we all should have and live by certain predetermined Biblical principles. These are decided beforehand, away from the heat of the battle and the squeeze of peer pressure. We hold to them with unbending tenacity.

It is challenging to hear of people like Eric Liddell. Likewise, it is discouraging when we see people cave in and sell out their integrity for lesser things. In any generation there are far more people ready to bend than to endure the cost of conviction.

There is a call to compromise convictions in the fourth and fifth chapters of Acts. It has nothing to do with sports or the Olympics, but in it we see certain men of principle refusing to bend even at the threat of bodily harm. That’s where we’ll spend our time this morning as we continue our Acts of the Apostles Series. I’ve called this message, Obeying God Rather than Men.

This story actually backs up into the third chapter of Acts. There we are told that Peter and John, two apostles of Christ, healed a lame man by the power of Jesus Christ. It resulted in an uproar as the overjoyed man with the sudden ability to walk after 40 years as an invalid, rushed into the temple in Jerusalem, dancing and leaping and praising God. The Jews in Jerusalem were not accustomed to that kind of disruptive behavior in the temple. Word of it reached the Sanhedrin Council quickly. Brushing aside the obvious implications of the miracle, Peter and John were summoned to explain what they had done to this man that would cause him to disturb their services. The apostles told the council the truth, that the man had been healed by the power of Jesus Christ, the same One they had crucified earlier that year. Peter’s message to them was short, not by his intent but because the authorities interrupted him and locked the two apostles in jail for the night. The next day Peter and John were brought before the irate council. Peter, in no small display of courage, finished the sermon he had begun the day before. The council was no more impressed than they had been on the previous day, but since many of the people had seen the formerly disabled man leaping and dancing and praising God, the Jewish leaders were afraid to do anything more than threaten Peter and John, lest they upset the crowd seen the obvious miracle. We’ll pick up the story in Acts 4:18-21.

The apostles’ response to the Council was, "we cannot stop speaking what we have seen and heard…." And they didn’t stop! After a prayer meeting with the church, they went right back to the temple and resumed preaching Jesus in violation of the Council’s instructions. Others were healed to such an extent that multitudes were crowding into the temple to see and hear them.

So they were called on the carpet again. Chapter 5, verses 17-21:

This is where it gets really good!

Many modern preachers, when they hit much opposition at all, find resolution by diluting the message - cutting it back - until it is acceptable to everyone. That was not what God wanted these men to do back then and neither is it what God wants us to do today.

Meanwhile, the Council members showed up in chambers, ready to interrogate the Apostles. They thought that Peter and John were in their cells. Verses 21b-28:

You know, you’d think they would have figured it out at that point!

Peter’s answer in verse 29 shows what kind of men these apostles were - and I believe what kind of people we should be.

What follows in the text is the description of the sermon Peter preached to them in the face of their threats. I don’t have time to read it, but basically, Peter didn’t diminish the strength of the message one bit. He told them the truth. They had crucified the Messiah, and they needed to repent. The council wasn’t in a position to kill them at the moment as they had done with Jesus. Too many people had seen the miracle. So instead they flogged them (that is, they beat them with rods) and ordered them to stop preaching in the Name of Jesus. So did Peter and John cease and desist at that point? Verses 41 and 42 tell us their response:

There are three quick things I want to say about these apostles and their convictions. As we look at them I encourage you to examine your own convictions.

Like all children in grade school, I reluctantly did my share of book reports. For one report my folks bought me a book called Profiles in Courage, written by a young man who was then running for President of the United States - John F. Kennedy. I realize that Kennedy’s integrity in his personal life has since been questioned, but that book really made an impression on me at the time. It was an anthology of accounts of people who had courageously stood by their principles against great odds. Each story was true.

One of the stories was about George Norris, a Senator from Nebraska, who, after making a very unpopular decision in the view of his constituents, stated: "I would rather lie in the silent grave, remembered by both friends and enemies as one who remained true to his faith and who never faltered in what he believed to be his duty, than to still live, old and aged, lacking the confidence of both factions."

I remember thinking that when I grew up I wanted to be like that - someone who had the courage to stand up for what he believed.

About that time (I think I was in the fifth grade) I also remember an incident involving an eighth grader that really impressed me. I was in the boy’s restroom when another boy came in and was calling a kid about half his size a bunch of foul names and pushing him around. I stood there watching (I guess that tells you the level of my own courage at the time) until a fourth boy came in - the eighth grader - and saw what was happening. I have never forgotten that day. That eighth grader walked up to the bully and pulled him off the younger kid. Then he proceeded to tell him that if he didn’t leave the kid alone he was going to make his life miserable until the day he graduated from the eighth grade. The bully took off and I had a hero! I decided that I would like to be like that eighth grader when I got to eighth grade! (It’s amazing to me how events like that can shape your life. That was over 40 years ago and I still remember it.)

Today, as I read the story of these apostles of Jesus, I find myself saying, "Yes! That’s the kind of Christian I want to be." Perhaps you do, too.

We live in the midst of a generation of people who lack moral courage. Raised on R rated movies written and directed by moral no-shows and rollovers, many around us have learned that everybody’s convictions are for sale if the price is right or if they are in any way inconvenienced. Who will teach then anything different?

"What kind of flower is that in your buttonhole?" a fellow asked his friend.

"Why, that’s a chrysanthemum," answered the friend.

"It looks like a rose to me."

"No, you’re wrong. It’s a chrysanthemum," insisted the friend.

"Spell it," the fellow said.

"K-r-i-s-, no it’s K-h-r-y-, no it must be C-r-i-s-...You know, I think you’re right. It is a rose."(2)

Don’t be inconvenienced. Don’t put forth any effort or risk. Change your beliefs! That’s how many live.

These apostles were different. They were men of courage!

The principle involved here is a very simple. Verse 29 says, "We must obey God rather than men." Is that also your conviction?

There is a difference between a conviction and a preference. According to the U.S. Supreme Court, a preference is a very strong belief, held with great strength. You can give your entire life in a full-time way to the service of the preference, and can also give your entire material wealth in the name of the same. You can energetically proselytize others to your preference. You can also teach this belief to your children, and the Supreme Court may still rule that it is a preference and not a conviction. A preference is a strong belief, but a belief that you will change under the right circumstances - such as peer pressure, family pressure, lawsuits, jail, and threat of death. A conviction is a belief that you will not change. Why? Because you believe that God requires it of you. Preferences aren’t protected by the U.S. Constitution. Convictions are. A conviction is not something that you fall into. It is something that you purpose in your heart. A conviction on the inside will always show up on the outside, in your lifestyle. A conviction is something that if you violate it, it would be a sin.(3)

In this account in Acts, these men were not expressing a strong preference. They had a conviction. For them they would be in graver danger if they disobeyed God than if they disobeyed men.

Is your faith a preference or a conviction? Can the principles you live by be changed if the price is right or the pressure is strong enough?

Some years ago, Senator John Tower was nominated to be the Secretary of Defense. During the hearings that followed he was accused of being a drunkard and a womanizer, accusations that appeared to have some semblance of truth. During the proceedings, then Senator Barry Goldwater got up and said, "If they chased every man or woman out of this town who’d shacked up with somebody else, or gotten drunk, there’d be no government." The situation is probably not much different today.

Most people’s so-called "convictions" that they show others in public are in reality only preferences. They beat the drums for the camera when there is opportunity, but then they do something else behind the scenes.

Rick Graham showed himself to be a man of conviction when he drove around the streets of San Francisco for more than an hour to find a lady who had left her purse with $1792 in cash on the back seat of his cab. He found her and returned her money. Of course, she was elated! But I like best the account of what he said when some of the other drivers ridiculed him for not pocketing the money: "I am a card-carrying member of the Christian faith, and what good is it to go to church if you don’t practice what you believe?" Indeed!

In the early morning hours of July 4, 1952 a powerful swimmer named Florence Chadwick attempted to become the first woman to swim from Catalina Island to the California coast. The 21-mile swim through shark-infested waters began on a foggy morning. Less than a half-mile from the finish, however, Chadwick had to be pulled from the water. Later she explained that she hadn’t been defeated by fatigue, but by the fog. The fact that she couldn’t see her goal was what caused her to give up her objective. "If I could have seen land, I might have made it," she said later. Two months later, Chadwick did make it. Again, fog limited her vision, but this time she overcame her despair by keeping a picture of the coast in her mind.

A big reason why some Christians ultimately compromise their convictions under pressure is that they lose sight of their goal. The goal is eternal life. With eyes focused in that, there is less potential for compromise.

Why do we come together on the Lord’s day and do the things we do? A big reason is so we can keep the goal before us!
We need to know and believe that the coastline is still out there, waiting for us if we keep swimming!

These apostles in Acts 5 had a clear objective in front of them. They wanted eternal life and they weren’t about to jeopardize it. To them it was worth more than their physical lives.

The expression "face the music" supposedly originated in Japan. According to the story I heard, there was a man in the imperial orchestra who couldn’t play a note. Since he was a person of great influence and wealth, he had demanded that he be given a place in the group because he wanted to perform before the emperor. The conductor agreed to let him sit in the second row of the orchestra, even though he couldn’t read a note of music. He was given a flute, and when the concert began, he raised his instrument, puckered his lips, and moved his fingers. He went through all the motions of playing, but never made a sound. The deception continued for 2 years.

Then a new conductor took over. He told the orchestra that he wanted to audition each player personally. One by one they performed in his presence. Finally it was the phony flutist’s turn. He was frantic with worry, so he pretended to be sick. The conductor, suspecting something was up, ordered a doctor to examine him. After the exam, the doctor declared that he was perfectly well. The conductor insisted that the man come forward to demonstrate his skill. Of course, the phony musician had to confess the charade. He was unable to "face the music".

On a day that God has fixed that is yet in the future, the Great Conductor of the universe is going to audition all of us who have been playing in that great orchestra called the church. When that day comes we won’t be able to call in sick. Whatever we are will become evident for all to see. Are you ready for that day?

What will it be for you on that great Day of Judgment when you "face the music?" You will greatly enhance your preparedness for that day by holding the faith you have now as a conviction and not a preference.

Footnotes: Please use your back button to return to your place.

1. Additional information about this event can be found in the 1999 Electronic edition of Encyclopedia Britannica under "Eric Liddell."
2. Winston K. Pendleton, 2121 Funny Stories and How to Tell Them.
3. David C. Gibbs, Jr. Christian Law Association, P.O. Box 30290, Cleveland, Ohio 44130, as recorded at: http://www.bible.org/illus/c/c-134.htm

Dave Redick is Minister of the Hwy 20 Church of Christ in Sweet Home, Oregon and Editor of The Preacher's Study. He may be reached at pstudysupport@comcast.net.

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All Scripture quotations and references are from the New American Standard Version unless otherwise stated.

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